Harry Potter gets smart and takes control - The Goblet

Chapter 35

Harry spent the following morning in the forest with Firenze and Hagrid. It was a blessed relief to be out of the oppression of the castle, and a much-needed distraction from all Harry's worries about Gryffindor, Snape and his father. He was so incredibly tempted to just walk deep in to the forest and never go back. But he didn't. He wasn't quite sure why, but he didn't.

Firenze and Harry had spent a productive morning training vines over a creek deep in the forest. The Centaurs had long been training branches and trees to form living bridges over rivers and streams deep in the forest. It was brilliant and somewhat etherial, and Harry was enjoying immensely all the forestry he was learning.

He'd had asked Hagrid about Unicorns, mainly how wizards got their horns to use in potions without actually harming them. He was relieved to know that they were usually shed every five years and that one could obtain horns without harming the beautiful creature. Hagrid wasn't sure any were due for a shedding, but he was scheduled to check to the unicorns later in the week, so they'd be able to see then.

Back in his cupboard for lunch, Harry set about beginning to solve the egg. He dug his fingernails into the groove that ran all the way around the golden egg and curiously prised it open.

It was hollow, completely empty, and the moment Harry opened it, the most horrible, loud, screechy wailing, filled the room. The nearest thing to it Harry had ever heard was the ghost orchestra at Nearly Headless Nick's deathday party, who had all been playing the musical saw.

Whipping out his wand, he shot a silencing charm on it and the noise stopped but did leave his ears ringing. Despite having silencing wards, he stayed frozen for a long time, listening for footsteps in case someone had heard.

When no-one came, he peered closely at the egg. It felt magical. But it looked like just a hollow bit of brass. He peered at it carefully, and cast a bunch of detection spells on it, cursing himself for not doing that first.

What came back was confusing. It did not have any runes on it, but the arithmancy showed it had sophisticated magic on it. It was so complex he didn't really understand all of it. And if Bill hadn't shown him the more advanced curse-breaking spells, Harry would never have managed to extract the arithmancy on the eggs at all! If he was interpreting all the numbers and equations right, it looked like someone had tried to capture a verbal message in the egg... But that couldn't be right. It didn't even sound like any sort of message, and he couldn't make sense of the equations enough to figure out how to translate it or figure out what sort of noise it was.

If anything it sounded like a banshee... unless it was a language? But what language sounded like screaming? Maybe he had to decode the noises? Or maybe it was music that had been distorted in some way? He set about testing every kind of revealing and detection charm on it he could think of and even tried a Reparo incase it was broken, but it made no difference to the horrible screeching sound.

He'd have to hope it was a language, and did have Flitwick's book on languages, he'd have to read it. He showed it to the twins after they finished their duelling practice, later that evening. For some reason Hermione hadn't shown up, Harry was getting worried. The Gryffindors had taken to hexing her as well, because of how vocal she'd been siding with Harry and disagreeing with them.

"That's horrid," said Fred, his hands over his ears still, "sounded like a Banshee."

"I thought it sounded a bit like Percy singing... maybe you've got to attack him while he's in the shower, Harry" George added

Harry snorted and said, "no, thanks. I thought it may be a code or a language message we might have to decipher?"

"Could be," George said, grabbing a book.